I did a good bit of episodic television directing, but directing a movie is so much more complicated.
I really enjoy playing that everyman part because that part is us, the audience. And you need somebody inside a comedy to tether the absurdity to reality.
You do certain things in your twenties that are just not appropriate in your thirties and certainly not appropriate in your forties. Eventually you even the scales, and it's time to move on and become an adult and start working hard again and going to sleep a little bit earlier. Fortunately, I got a job to facilitate that transition.
I never looked at fan mail, for some reason. My mother and grandmother handled my mail - although it's not like I was ever in the stratosphere of Kirk Cameron or Scott Baio.
You can say your lines a million different ways and play your character a million different ways and still hit the common, agreed-upon finish line.
I look at whatever the finish line is for the character and then kind of act backwards from that and play him in such a way so that that finish line is more rewarding.
Nothing would make me happier than doing nothing but drama for the foreseeable future.
My father was a freelance writer/director/producer, and my mother was a stewardess for Pan-Am. It was very non-traditional.
You hit those valleys sometimes and it's really frustrating. It's like getting stuck in traffic on the freeway. But there's not much you can do about it.
It's not about the script: it's about who the director is and who the other people in the cast are. Because you can look at a great script and execute it in a very sophomoric way, and you can look at an OK script, and you can execute it in a very sophisticated way and come out with something really good.
I'm not a big, huge star, and so when people see me, it's usually to talk about something I've done, and that's a great conversation to have. That's what we're doing it for.
I became an adult before I had a kid, which I highly recommend. I just like to throw her around. She's a really good snuggler, and she likes to give kisses and hugs.
In most professions, if you stay at the office an extra four hours every day, you're gonna impress the boss. You're gonna get that promotion; you're gonna get that raise. You're gonna at least have job security. But with acting, if you're really ambitious and you have a good work ethic and are really good at your job, it might not really matter.
My goal is to get another 30 years out of this business. So I need to figure out the fuel to do that. And so far, I think it's respect and quality and company, not celebrity or box office or stardom. It's not a sprinter's approach. It's more like a long-distance thing. You can stick around a lot longer if you kind of slow-play it.
It's not a sprinter's approach. It's more like a long-distance thing. You can stick around a lot longer if you kind of slow-play it.
I love a massage. I'd go every day if I could. I don't need to be wrapped in herbs like a salmon fillet, but I do love a massage.
That straight man character is a short trip between comedy and drama in a project, so I can play the comedic beat on the same page as a dramatic beat. It gives me a lot of freedom as an actor to play scenes in multiple ways because I don't play the clown, nor do I play someone who is particularly maudlin.
My mother is British; she's from Shrewsbury. She turned me onto 'Monty Python' very early.
I think NBC got a little reluctant to get behind single-camera shows after 'Scrubs' didn't do what they thought it was going to do following 'Friends.'
I wasn't really interested in doing anything except going from pilot season to pilot season and sowing my oats in the months between and telling my agency to stop sending me movie scripts, because they'd pile up in my house and make me feel guilty because I had to read them.